The Descent From Truth (16 page)

“We’re going down,” the pilot shouted over the din.

“Looks flat over there.” Alex pointed to an area where a patch of snow revealed a break in the trees. “Seat belt,” he shouted to Pia.

The flat, open area loomed—they were going to make it. Then it felt as if a giant hand reached out and grabbed the helicopter.

A heavy thump, and it spun around sharply. Swirling snow, kicked up by the rotor blades, painted the windshield white. A still heavier thump, an abrupt jar. Faintly through the artificial snowstorm, Alex saw trees and rocks. The helicopter tilted as if it was going to flip over. The still-churning rotor blades dug into the snow and made the craft shift one last time, a dying animal trying to regain its feet. It came to rest on its side.

Sudden quiet. Unearthly stillness.

Alex braced his feet against the side of the cockpit and unsnapped his seat belt. He twisted to look into the passenger compartment. “You guys okay back there?”

“Yes.” Pia still clutched Frederick in her lap, her arms locked around his waist. “We cannot—”

Frederick started screaming again, drowning her words. She unbuckled her seat belt and planted one foot on the canted floor, the other on the wall by the cargo hatch. “We cannot get out through here,” she said, shouting over Frederick’s wails. “It is blocked.”

The pilot had been sitting with a dazed expression. He shook his head the way a wet dog might, unsnapped his seatbelt, and looked around. “This way.” With his back braced against the seat, he reached up to open an overhead escape hatch.

Alex scanned the cockpit for anything the pilot might use as a weapon. He tossed a fire extinguisher through the opened hatch, pushed a flare gun and a fire axe under his belt. Carrying his and Pia’s rifles, he climbed out.

The pilot lifted Frederick into Alex’s arms and hoisted Pia so she could climb through the hatch. He tossed out the helicopter’s survival kit, the backpacks and snowshoes, and Alex’s cross-country skis. Then he climbed out.

They stood for several moments beside the crippled machine, recovering their equilibrium and getting their bearings. The helicopter had dug its way into a snow bank, and the impact created a miniature avalanche from a rocky ledge they had barely missed. Only the cockpit and the twisted rotor assembly protruded from the white mass. Had they come in inches lower, trees would have entangled the landing skids. A few feet to the right and they would have slammed into the ledge.

Alex clapped his hand on the pilot’s shoulder. “You did all right.”

“Close call, though.” The pilot’s grin looked shaky. He pointed to Alex’s portable radio. “Better call in our position. If the weather closes in, we’ve had it.”

“No need. The homing beacon comes on automatically in a crash.” A quick blink of the pilot’s eyes, an overly casual expression, told Alex he had guessed right. “Show it to me.” The pilot stared, looking tense, and Alex braced for an attack.

With a shrug, the pilot crawled back into the cockpit and pointed to a gray panel with a blinking light.

“Stand back.” Alex attacked the panel with the fire axe. He kept banging and slashing even after the light went out, stopping only when the circuitry behind the panel was a ruined pile of electronic debris. “Let’s go.”

Back outside, he used the climbing rope from his backpack to bind the pilot’s hands behind him and fasten them to a sturdy evergreen. Then he waded through the snow to a nearby stand of trees and began hacking down small evergreens with the fire axe. While Pia watched the pilot and kept Frederick entertained, he dragged the downed saplings to the helicopter. The high altitude and numbing cold impeded his effort, but he worked until brush covered the helicopter so that it would be concealed from over-flying aircraft.

Breathing hard from exertion, he turned to Pia. “You up to some more hiking?”

She sat Frederick on her grounded backpack, stepped into her snowshoes, and reclaimed him. “Ready.”

Alex strapped on his cross-country skis and gave his snowshoes to the pilot, after adjusting the man’s wrist bindings so that his hands were loosely tethered before him. With the pilot out front, they set a course for the rooftop that had been visible before they crashed.

Distances were tricky, but Alex guessed three miles. If he had the direction right, they would find shelter before dark. Lousy planning, he thought as they trudged through the snow. Their only provisions were high-energy chocolate bars from the helicopter’s survival kit. The kit also contained first-aid supplies, a flashlight, and a panel of florescent-orange, plastic sheeting to use for shelter and as a signal.

Pia had learned her lesson when she insisted on carrying Frederick before. This time she and Alex alternated bearing the chubby load. The pilot lugged her backpack, so her only other burdens were the rifle they had taken from the watchman and the bag of disposable diapers Alex had snatched from the lodge.

Rugged terrain, deep washes, and rocky outcroppings made them detour time and again. In three hours, Alex guessed they had covered no more than two miles. Even with his careful compass references, he worried that they were off course. The sun disappeared, and the temperature plummeted. Should they press on, hoping to spot the cabin, or use the brief remaining daylight to gather firewood and set up camp?

Keep going, he decided. Minutes later, beyond a stand of Douglas fir, they found the shoreline of a frozen lake. “We’ve got it made,” he told his panting, dejected-looking fellow travelers. “The cabin will be on or near the water.”

The assurance seemed to help. Their hapless expressions brightened, their pace quickened. But what if he was wrong?

Another half hour of following the shoreline, and Pia shouted, “There. Over there!” In the twilight, a rooftop peeked through a break in the trees.

As Alex knew it would be this time of the year and this high up, the cabin was deserted. Well-constructed, it was tightly sealed with a deadbolt lock on the door and plywood sheets covering the windows. Under a heavy coating of snow, they found seasoned firewood stacked on a deck facing the lake. Slender logs not yet sawed to fireplace length lay half-covered in snow beside the stack. Using one of the logs as a battering ram, Alex forced the door by splintering the wooden door-jamb around the deadbolt’s latch plate.

The cabin had two bedrooms. It also had two fireplaces: one in the living room and another in the master bedroom.

In the living room, Alex tightened the knots binding the pilot’s wrists and tied his ankles as well. He ran the man’s belt through the wrist rope and buckled it at the back to secure the captive’s hands at his waist. Then he built a fire, and everyone collapsed on the living room floor. Even Frederick seemed worn out. He fretted for several minutes over the paucity of breast milk and fell asleep on Pia’s stomach. Alex realized that he too was dangerously near sleep. He roused himself and helped the tethered pilot stretch out on the couch. A loop of rope around the man’s neck secured him there. No blankets or sheets in the closets, so Alex covered the pilot with the sheets he and Pia had used for camouflage and the plastic tarp from the helicopter.

Pia insisted on cleaning the cuts on Alex’s face and daubing them with antiseptic from the helicopter’s first aid kit. Then they spread their sleeping bags in front of the fireplace. Alex lifted Frederick in with Pia, put fresh logs on the fire, and stretched out in the other bag. Wondering what morning would bring, worrying that his crew would perish in this desolate place, he drifted into an exhausted slumber.

Chapter 21

Theo Faust responded to a summons from Maximillian Koenig and found the financier in his ski chalet’s great room, relaxing in a wingback chair positioned to catch afternoon sun streaming through a skylight. The only nearby furniture was a circular table that held a silver tea service and a silver platter with a selection of pastries.

Faust stood at attention in the middle of the room and gave an account of the day’s action. “The fugitives turned off the radio equipment in the hijacked helicopter, so we couldn’t track it. All we know is, they headed east into the mountains.”

Reporting the loss of Frederick was the most difficult chore Faust had ever faced with the owner of Variant Corporation. The “accident” he had planned for the kid during that trip from Denver to the ski resort would not have been his fault, because Koenig had made the decision to send Pia and the boy ahead in the limousine instead of letting them accompany him and his wife in the resort’s helicopter. Pia’s initial kidnapping of the boy had been excusable on the same grounds. Her escape from the Silver Hill office building had been a non-issue; with Frederick eating solid food, Koenig no longer considered her important. But letting the old man’s putative heir be snatched from right under his nose was serious.

The scariest part of Koenig’s reaction was that there didn’t seem to be one. Faust could have handled a chewing out. He would have stood passively and accepted a physical assault. But Koenig just sat there, staring at a corn plant beside the fireplace. His expression was that of an expert poker player, betraying nothing. Faust realized that he wouldn’t know where he stood until it was too late to do anything about it.

After what seemed a long time, Koenig sipped from his teacup and set it back in its saucer. “What is the likelihood of recovering the boy?’

“Minimal, sir. They ran out of fuel somewhere in that national forest. Reporting a lost helicopter would call attention that we can’t afford now. And we don’t have the assets in place to mount an effective search.”

Koenig refilled his cup from the teapot. “If we don’t report the lost helicopter, what are their survival chances?”

“Pretty close to zero, sir.” That was the only upside Faust saw in this fiasco: being spared the necessity of engineering the kid’s death. “If they’re still alive and the weather doesn’t do them in, they’ll starve in a couple of weeks.”

An impassive nod. “This is a major setback in the succession project. But my health is stable, and we have viable sperm in reserve. I assume a backup breeder can still be contacted?”

“No problem, sir.” It amazed Faust that the old man seemed so emotionless. He did not have long to live, and his death would leave a multi-billion-dollar empire up for grabs. Yet his main concern was that the new owner would carry his genes. “I can have one at the clinic within twenty-four hours.”

Koenig added a dollop of cream to his tea. “Has there been any reaction by local law enforcement to these events?”

“Yes, sir, but the wrecked snowcat was good cover. I had one of our guys file an accident report. He claimed the brakes failed and he bailed out just before the cat went into the ravine. When all of our people have returned home, I’ll have local security report the helicopter stolen.”

A nod of approval. “A problem has arisen in Lima that requires my immediate attention. I will be departing tomorrow.”

Faust tried to think of a diplomatic way to object. This detour to deal with the kid had forced him to reschedule a meeting with his black-market technology vendors and made them as jumpy as barefoot kids on hot pavement. With another missed get-together, they’d probably cut and run. Worse, they might find another buyer.

“But Madam Koenig is returning to Denver,” Koenig said. “A problem involving something she has ordered from a shop. I want you to go with her, handle security arrangements, and escort her back to Lima.”

Faust relaxed. He should have known that Dominga would concoct a way for him to stay and complete the negotiation. That she was also staying, however, gave him pause. So far, she had been content to remain in the background and pull strings by remote control. Did this portend a more activist roll?

Koenig’s voice took on a sharper edge. “Do you have any questions?”

“No, sir. I understand the program.”

“Then I expect that you have a lot to do today.”

It was the old man’s unsubtle way of saying,
get the hell out of my sight
. Faust did a military about-face and marched out of the chalet. Sitting in his commandeered SUV, he called his lieutenant, Carlos Escobedo. “Let’s get together for an early dinner,” he ordered. “The lodge’s restaurant. See you there ASAP.”

An hour later, sitting with Escobedo in the dining room, he cut into a sirloin that had been cooked to his specifications. Though the steak was seared on the outside, blood gushed around the knife. “I’m not convinced the fugitive is dead,” he told Escobedo after swallowing his first bite. “Jake Stuber is the best helo pilot I know. I’m guessing he set that old crate down in the mountains like putting a baby to bed.”

“Even if you’re right,” Escobedo said, “the weather will get them.”

“There are summer places along the fringe of the national forest. Bryson might find one. He’s trained in cold weather survival, and he’s good. It’s a loose end.”

A nod. “What’s the program?”

“I want you to keep the assault team here for a few days. Monitor the radio in case Stuber calls in. Keep the team on four-hour alert at all times, ready to scramble if that happens.”

Another nod. “If something goes down, how do we play it?”

Escobedo wasn’t privy to Dominga Koenig’s plan for Frederick, but a team member was. Faust would have to individually brief that man, make sure he knew what to do if they found the kid. He’d let Escobedo think Bryson was to be the only casualty. “Sedate the girl,” he said, lowering his voice even though they were seated with no other diners nearby. “Take her and the kid back to Lima along with the pilot. But not Bryson. I want that double-crossing SOB’s heart cut out while it’s still beating.”

* * *

The next morning, Faust escorted Koenig to Denver International Airport. After his boss departed, he checked into a Denver hotel. Dominga interrupted his registration with a call on his cell phone, summoning him to her suite at the Ritz-Carlton. He hurried through the registration and rushed to her hotel to call her from the lobby. She told him to wait. Thirty minutes later, he called once more.

“Didn’t we just speak?” Anger, real or feigned, made her normally soft voice hard.

“We talked half an hour ago. You said to wait a few minutes.”

“If I told you to wait, that’s what you should do.” She broke the connection.

Fuming, Faust toyed with alternatives. Calling her again would just emphasize his powerlessness against her petty games. He could leave and tell her to wait when she called him, but that wouldn’t be smart. He nursed a drink in the bar, paced the lobby, walked around the block to cool off in frigid outside air, and returned to the bar.

After another fifteen minutes, his phone chimed. “Come up, Theo.” She opened the door the moment he pressed the bell, and he looked her over. As much as he had come to detest the woman, she was a physical knockout. Her shoulder-length, dark blond hair, usually pulled back, hung in loose waves. A sheer dressing gown displayed a body that was as nearly perfect as dietitians, personal trainers, and top-notch cosmetic surgeons could craft.

She turned away, leaving him to close the door. “White Russian,” she said, and pointed toward a wet bar on the far side of the room.

Until he entered Maximillian Koenig’s employ, Faust had never heard of a White Russian. Then Dominga took him in hand. She replaced his entire wardrobe, corrected his careless speech and his table manners, and arranged introductions to politicians and businessmen. She also taught him to make her favorite drinks. The wet bar was fully stocked, he noted as he concocted her version of a White Russian, using equal parts Tia Maria, vodka, and Bailey’s Irish Cream. He eyed the vodka hungrily. Gray Goose, always his first choice. Later, she would invite him to make himself a vodka martini. He preferred his vodka straight, chilled and with a lime twist, but she insisted that he go through an elaborate ritual to craft her idea of a perfect dry martini.

Standing before a pair of glass-paneled French doors that led to a spacious patio, she kept her back to him while he mixed her drink. As he approached, drink in hand, she turned to take it from him and set it aside.

Then she slapped him. The heel of her hand slammed into his jaw.

She was not a large woman, but she was solid, well-conditioned, and coordinated. The roundhouse blow, starting at knee level and gaining momentum during a wide arc, driven by the propulsive force of her body, rocked him. He shook his head to clear it, worked his jaw to assess the damage.

Cradling the hand that delivered the blow, she flexed her fingers. “Why is my husband’s bastard child still breathing?”

Faust took another moment to regain self-control. “I don’t know that he is.”

“You had a simple assignment: eliminate a year-old boy whose only protection was a hundred-pound breeding cow.”

“It was set to go down during that trip to the ski lodge. The wind storm, that white-out, screwed things up. I don’t control the weather.”

“How likely is it that they’re still alive?”

“Minimal. To be certain, I’ve arranged for a man to wrap things up if they’re found. The kid will get caught in crossfire during the rescue attempt.”

“My husband thinks he can start over, inseminate another breeder. You’re sure the left-over sperm is no longer viable?”

“Absolutely. Twenty-fours hours without power to the storage freezer, and with the door open. I had a sample analyzed to make sure.”

Dominga sipped her drink. “When is your meeting with the vendors?”

“It’s set for tomorrow.”

She sipped again and rolled the alcoholic mixture around on her tongue as if testing a rare wine. “Go shower. You smell like the street.”

It’s all coming to a head, Faust reminded himself as he entered the most lavishly outfitted bathroom he had seen outside of the Koenig mansion. When her husband croaks without a male heir, she’ll have total authority over Variant Corporation. As her operations VP, I’ll be able to funnel even more resources to my Shining Path sidekicks.

Dominga planned to use the rebels to help her family regain their old political dominance, but Faust had a more ambitious agenda. With his guidance, the vicious little backcountry brawlers would control the northern part of the country, the area rich in rare-earth minerals, and the Chinese would deal with him to limit how much got dumped on the market. He might even end up running the whole country. At a minimum, he would administer economic affairs in the northern sector on behalf of the rebels, with all that implied about power and wealth.

He toweled himself dry and checked to see whether Dominga had set aside one of her husband’s robes for him. Should have known better, he thought as he pulled a fresh bath towel off the rack and wrapped it around his hips. He found her in the bedroom, lounging on a mound of plush pillows. The duvet was turned back, exposing silk, royal-blue sheets that were color-coordinated with the room’s carpet and drapes. He paused midway between the door and the bed and stood at a modified parade rest, feeling awkward and embarrassed with only a towel for cover.

“We need to talk about tomorrow’s meeting,” she said. “About what you will offer the vendors. But first, lay the towel aside and fetch me another drink.”

Fetch. Not mix, fetch. She could have been telling a dog to fetch a ball. But Faust had learned his Special Forces lessons well. You don’t waste resources going head-to-head with a stronger enemy, you don’t let the enemy box you in, and you pick a fight only when you’re reasonably certain you can win. He draped the towel over a nearby chair, strolled to the bar, and re-entered the bedroom to offer her the fresh drink, hyper-conscious of her gaze on his swaying cock.

She took the glass and pointed to the carpet. “There.” Sipping her White Russian, she waited while he dropped to his knees by the bed, then twisted around to sit on the edge, a leg on either side of him, her gown bunched up around her hips. She let her knees sag apart. “Use your mouth. You know how I like it.”

Yes, he knew. She liked it slow, thorough, endless. No hands. Just his lips and tongue, his face.

Minutes later, with her legs draped over his shoulders, she set her drank aside and grasped his ears. She used them to direct his attention to first one spot and then another. “Tomorrow, when you meet with those American businessmen,” she said as he labored, “agree to pay half of the additional money they demand. But offer it only if they produce the first set of chips on schedule.” Pulling on his ears, she tilted his head so their gazes met. “Do you think that’s wise?” she asked. “Rewarding men for performance, and only if they perform?”

“It won’t hurt.” He hated the smirk on her face, wanted to wipe it off with his fist. “They need the cash.”

“Cash, yes.” She twisted his ears, directing him back to work. “As you Americans are fond of saying, it is king. They will try to negotiate a higher price, but you will be adamant.”